Tom let me go through thirteen boxes of 45s that he was getting ready to put out on the floor. About half were from his own collection. He told me he would bring stuff home and put it on the shelves but he had never taken the time to organize them. When he did he realized he had duplicates and triplicates of all sorts of stuff. Very little jazz in there but a very enjoyable few hours thumbing through.
Hi Techs “Screamin’ You Head” 45 at Bop Shop Records.
I came home with six gems. Two Sun Ra 45s, “Plutonium Nights” and “The Sky Is A Sea of Darkness,” a Lightning Hopkins single from 1965, one of Jack White’s Chess reissues, Muddy Waters “Manish Boy,” Otis Redding double A, “Hard to Handle” and “Amen,” a clean copy of Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World” Captain Beefheart’s “Abba Abba.”
Boat performing at Snake Sisters 1984 (now Lux) in Rochester, New York
Every week it seems we read about another musician from the 1960s that has passed away. Today it was Country Joe. Steve Hoy, had the first Fish album when we were roommates. I loved their first single, “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine.”
Because we all grew up with that music it was always a reference point when we were performing as Personal Effects. At least three times during that period we played out as “Boat”. They were odd ball dates like Halloween (above) or a Pyramid Art Gallery event. That one was in a cavernous upstairs space connected to the old Visual Studies Workshop.
Boat setlist from Snake Sisters 1984 (now Lux) in Rochester, New York
Kevin, who did sound for Personal Effects and eventually played bass with us, was in bands in the sixties that performed a lot of the songs we did as Boat. Phil Marshall, from Colorblind James Experience at that time, played guitar. They helped transform Personal Effects into Boat. Peggi recently came across one of our setlists. Looks like we all sang and we had guest aoppearences from Martin Edic and Pat Mosciano.
I have picked over these boxes many times. I let a few months go by and then revisit them. There were only six boxes marked “Jazz” when I first came across them, so I guess it is a good sign that there are now nine. The ninth, out of view in this photo, is all boxed EPs. I found a couple of Bud Powell beauties in there. I didn’t see any new ones yesterday — well, all of them are old; I mean newly added. And I worry that the old-timers who had these items in their collections have already moved on. The selection is certainly drying up.
I listened to a short stack and came home with five. “Bacchanal” by Gabor Szabo is a winner. The Hungarian guitarist fell in love with jazz listening to Voice of America and wound up playing in Chico Hamilton’s chamber jazz combo. I picked up a Coleman Hawkins track on the Impulse label, a crazy version of “Little Liza Jane,” a song written so long ago (1917) that Hawkins could put his name on it.
I grabbed another Gerry Mulligan disc, another of those four-song 45s on the Pacific Jazz label (think cool jazz). I have four now. I wish they hadn’t done that. 7-inch records were designed to carry one song on a side. A or B. You like it or you don’t play it. Nobody wants to have to cue up the one song on a side that you like. And it certainly wouldn’t work in a jukebox setting.
For me, I can’t get enough of the slow, moody Mulligan. He plays baritone sax. There is no piano player in his band, and Chet Baker plays trumpet with him. (Nobody wants to hear an upbeat Chet Baker.) The two horns on the late-night, “Darn That Dream,” “The Nearness of You,” and “My Funny Valentine” sound like heaven.
Ray Brown has got to be the greatest bass player who has ever lived. No, that can’t be right. Charlie Mingus, Richard Davis and Charlie Haden could all be that guy. But Ray really shines on “Song of the Volga Boatmen.” I found a copy of his version of the Russian folk song in a trio setting with Hank Jones and Buddy Rich. Here you get to savor the attack, the swing, and the shape of every note.
Kahil El Zabar, Corey Wilkes and Alex Harding at Bop Shop 02.23.26
The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble opened last night’s sold-out show at the Bop Shop with Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints.” Kahil played a hypnotic pattern on his drums with mallets while Corey Wilke and Alex Harding added precision and then the enchanting melody. We’ve seen them over twenty times, and it is always a treat. We’ve heard Kahil in other settings as well, with David Murray and Billy Bang, and the lineup never includes a bass player. They have a uniquely sophisticated, primal sound. It is from the heart.
Kahil wrote “Great Black Music” for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and they played a version of that with different lyrics last night. “Keep on Marching” was the refrain. Kahil reminded us that Mother Nature is much stronger than the crazy man in the White House. He did a spot-on impression of Ornette Coleman when he told the crowd how Ornette called him after he heard Kahil’s song “Ornette” on a New York radio station. The band played “Ornette” and then one of Ornette’s, “Lonely Woman,” to cap a perfect night.
Our neighbors at the end of the street brought two freshly made, still-warm cinnamon rolls down to us. We were already making dinner, so we thanked them and said we would have them for breakfast. On the way out, they wanted to know what our secret was. “How do you keep your driveway so clean?” They speculated that the pavement may be heated. “We shovel,” we told them. Pretty simple. We’re home most of the time, and when it snows, we shovel. It’s a great excuse to get outdoors. Most of our other neighbors either have a plow contract or a snowblower, and we hardly see them in the winter.
CalZone gave us a heads up about PBS’s American Masters show on Friday, and we built our day around the broadcast. “Sun Ra: Do the Impossible” is available to stream now, and I would call it required viewing for human beings. The producers did a great job touching on all facets of the poet, philosopher, and music visionary’s life, but the section on Sun Ra cranking out LPs with custom covers on his own label was mind-blowing. Those original Saturn LPs sell for thousands today as the world is catching up with Sun Ra.
Steve Black texted us just before 4:30 the other day. His text read: “Here’s hoping you have the best 4:30 PM ever!” It was indeed at least one of the best 4:30 PMs ever. We were listening to a couple of Peggy Lee 45s, “One More Ride on the Merry-go-Round” and “Sans Souci” and I told him so. Steve must have gone to YouTube to listen to the songs because he texted us back a comment that someone had left under the video of Sans Souci (above).
“Thank you, You Tube…..Purchased a 45 record of this song when I was 11 years old for 49 cents. left it on a bus and never got to play it.. Now I can hear it any time I want……Brady; Buffalo, NY. Purchased at Sattlers “998”” @wloriganbrady
Steve thought these ingredients, with a little fleshing out, would make a great movie. The song, with lyrics by Peggy Lee, came out in 1952 and Brady says he bought it at Sattler’s in nearby Buffalo. Sattlers was a department store in the very center of the Polonia section of Buffalo.
My copy is pretty clean. I might have William Brady’s record. Rob Weinert-Kendt has a post on this song, a tribute to its brilliance, and he includes a demo version that really knocked me out. Would have made a killer b side and would certainly be featured in the movie.
“Bohemia” by Margaret Explosion. Live recording at Little Theatre Café January 7, 2026
I haven’t played with AI for video yet, but I need to move up to something more sophisticated than iMovie. I’ve pretty much exhausted the possibilities for manipulating random video clips.
That said, here’s the second video from this week. The last one, “Sombremesa,” was for a song on our most recent CD, Field Recordings, and this one goes with a piece from January’s performance at the Little Theatre Café.
For the last six months or so, I’ve picked one improvisation from each month’s performance and given it a title and a video. This one has some snake-charm qualities and is called “Bohemia.” The videos can be found here.
For years now, there has been one person in the crowd at the Little who listens intently and never fails to comment on the music. I hope he knows how much that means to us.
This one goes out to Pete.
Margaret Explosion performs Thursday, February 5 at Little Theatre Café 7-9pm.
“Sobremesa” by Margaret Explosion from 2024 release “Field Recordings”
Not sure if I should be putting quotes around a Google AI Overview definition of this word but here goes:
“Sobremesa (Spanish for “over the table”) is the cherished tradition of lingering at the table after a meal to chat, relax, and enjoy conversation with family or friends, with no rush to leave; it’s a cultural practice emphasizing connection as much as the food, often involving coffee, drinks, or dessert, and explains why restaurant checks aren’t brought until asked for. It can happen after lunch or dinner, even during business meals, and is a time for bonding, storytelling, and digestion.”
This could be the most uneventful video yet for Margaret Explosion, footage from a Catalan traveling circus troupe coupled with one of my favorite songs on the “Field Recordings” cd. The old world melody has an Early Music /Chamber Music quality and Melissa, our cello player, is not even on this one. Peggi’s saxophone melody with Jack’s bass clarinet sounds almost like bagpipes at times. Phil’s guitar parts echo the melody and add the atmosphere while Ken’s bass parts anchor the whole. I hope you like it.
Margaret Explosion “Shake” was recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on 12.03.25.
I’m kind of thinking all five members of Margaret Explosion will be there on Wednesday. You never know. One thing I do know is that it will be different. The song above was recorded at our last performance. We made a short video for it. Looking forward to Wednesday.
I have been building a small collection of small records, jazz 45s, and two of my favorites are by Ike Quebec. The tenor saxophonist had fallen into obscurity after his mid 40’s 78 “Blue Harlem.” When Blue Note decided to hop on the 45 rpm juke box market (think soul jazz organ and tenor sax), they rereleased Ike’s Blue Harlem and recorded three sessions worth of Ike Quebec 45s, one in ’59, ’60 and ’62. Blue Note has recently released a three lp set of the lot called, “The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions.” It is a wonder.
Before 1950 all jukeboxes were 78 pm. RCA spent an unprecedented $5,000,000 in 1950 promoting the 45. The Seeburg M100B was at first a nickel a play and six plays for a quarter but after 1951 each machine would be dime a play and three plays for a quarter. That’s the way I remember it.
My brother-in-law gave us the records as a Chanukah gift. With his permission we put it under our imaginary tree and opened it on Christmas morning. We listened to five of the six sides on New Year’s Eve and then the sixth on New Year’s Day. This time I marked my favorites – Blue Monday, Blue Friday, Everything Happens to Me, What a Difference a Day Makes, If I Could Be with You, How Long Has This Been Going On, Imagination and There is No Greater Love. I favor the slow numbers, the ones that would have a couple hanging onto one another on the dance floor. These killer tracks are scattered across the six sides. Imagine how sensational it would be to have the 45s.
Sun Ra released dozens of singles for the Juke Box market under a variety of names. Evidence repackaged them as a 2 cd set years ago. And what a treat it was to open “It’s Christmas Time” b/w “Happy New Year to You” by the Qualities on 45, also from our brother in law.
Duane sent us up one heavy Xmas package, nine of the ten Brian Eno produced Island/Antilles/Obscure experimental/ambient albums from the mid-to-late 1970s, 20th-century classical music. These discs are easy on the ears and worked well behind long holiday conversations.
Chris from the Squires of the Subterrain included a three volume set of unreleased demos called “Sketchbook” with his holiday card. Chris is a musical craftsman and wizard like Brian Wilson. He does it all, plays most instruments, layers beautiful harmony vocal tracks and engineers musical constructions that are pure joy to listen to.
The YouTube gods teased us with “A Producers Epiphany: Jim Dickinson on Working with the Rolling Stones, Part 1 of 2.” Dickinson is such a natural story teller we just sat back and let him describe the Stones’ songwriting process, Keith handing him the wrong chords, laying down out-of-tune tracks and then asking Dickinson to play piano on “Wild Horses” because Ian Stewart disliked minor chords. The interview reminded us that we still had not watched our last Netflix dvd. When they pulled the plug on dvds they let you keep the last one and we put ours , 2013’s “Muscle Shoals,” away without ever watching.
The first hour of the 1:42 was brilliant. The birth of the studio, the soulful country vibe, the hits they churned out for Percy Sledge and Wilson Pickett and most of all the decision by Jerry Wexler to bring Aretha Franklin, who had been recording with arrangements, charts and session musicians down south where all those magical songs were recorded. The “Queen of Soul” recording with a bunch of honkies. I have no idea why they had Bono as a talking head. That was the only not brilliant piece of the first hour. The movie takes a wrong turn just after the Stones section with Duane Allman, Leonard Skynyrd and the birth of Southern Rock.
Untitled “Planes of a Tangle” wire and DNA film by Colleen Buzzard at 2025 Rochester Contemporary Members Show Rochester Contemporary Members Show
RoCo’s annual Members Show opened last night. Their community outreach program is clearly working because RoCo is running out of wall space to accommodate one piece from each member. Democratically hung, floor to ceiling, the show always manages to look especially good.
I found three pieces particularly engaging. Colleen Buzzard’s three dimensional drawing is sculptural but it also plays with the wall itself and the light in the room. The various elements appear in active conversation with each other and the viewer.
“Wanted to Give Myself a Nightmare” acrylic on canvas by Bradley Butler at 2025 Rochester Contemporary Members Show
Bradley Butler is the former director of Main Street Arts in Clifton Springs. His own work has always struck me as rather mysterious considering he spent so much time in that cheery space. His diptych above is mysterious and beautiful at the same time.
“The Way the Grass Smells at Night” film photography by Jovana Babovic at 2025 Rochester Contemporary Members Show
This photograph by Jovana Babovic was given the Visual Studies Workshop Award so I wasn’t the only one attracted to it. The small photo in the big mat is dramatic. The warm mat and the cool photo is a striking contrast. But most of all the piece is very human. That sounds funny considering every piece in the show was made by a human but I feel that quality most here.
Louis Danziger cover art for “The Artistry of Bud Powell” 7″
How many products are there that can get re-sold over and over again and sometimes often increase in value? I think about that while going through boxes of used records at the Bop Shop. Like millions of other people I sold most of my records when cds came out and then I sold the cds after ripping them. And someone has probably bought every one of those items a few times over by now.
The 1954 Bud Powell record above used to belong to Douglas Silver who lived in this house in Lakewood California. His address was written on the back of the 45 I purchased. I love imagining Doug sitting in this house with Bud Powell on his hi-fi. Records have a long life. They live longer than we do. Louis Danziger, the guy who designed this fabulous cover, is 102. Examples of his work are included in the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at RIT.
I don’t miss all that vinyl and certainly not the cds but Peggi and I hung on to our forty-fives. And the collection continues to swell, mostly with the addition of jazz titles. I made a playlist of our jazz 45s for Apple and Spotify. Here are the links – Apple Music–Spotify
“One” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on 10.05.25
Margaret Explosion plays this Wednesday, December 3rd at the Little Theatre Café. We try to do a different show every time we play. It helps that not all of five of us can be there most nights. Melissa will not be there on Wednesday so there will be no cello. All five of us were there on October 5 and this song is from our second set. There was a full moon that night and I made this movie as we drove home on East Main after the gig. Peggi was driving. At the intersection of Culver things got a little strange and we went into a dream state. Our friend, Pete, was there and he wrote a poem while he listened. We’ve used his poem in the video.
Peggi Fournier plays soprano sax, Jack Schaefer plays guitar, Melissa Davies plays cello, Ken Frank plays the big bass and I play the drums. I hope you can stop out on Wednesday. Little Theatre Café 7-9pm
My sister, Amy, and her husband came over for dinner a few nights back and they brought a short stack of fresh vinyl – shrink-wrapped, re-releases and some newly released. We listened to all of one, one side of two others and just one track from a fourth. Not every record works as a setting for conversation and isn’t that really what “over for dinner” means? We need a pretext for “conversation.”
The next morning I asked Howie” if he could send me a photo of the eight records so we could stream them. He sent this video and I made a playlist of the songs. I couldn’t find the compilation, “When the Rain Turns Into Snow” (I like it when some things just aren’t available to stream). We listened in our living room, in the car and in the kitchen while we separated cardamom seeds from their pods for a recipe.
Andrew Hill “Judgement” on the fabled Blue Note label features Bobby Hutchinson on vibes, Richard Davis on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. The way Andrew Hill plays piano he could’ve almost done this date himself. He states the melody, goes on flights of fancy while staying fiercely grounded and carries on a dialog with his own counter-rhythmic, melodic lines. The earthy Elvin Jones and Richard Davis on drums and bass are a perfect compliment and they make this release a masterwork.
Coleman Hawkins “and confreres” (Oscar Peterson Trio and Roy Eldridge) is a curious release. Hawkins horn sounds so rich and the natural reverb they used on it makes it a study in late fifties recording techniques but the bass and drums get lost on some tracks. Almost sounds like they were doing overdubbing back then. The song “Cocktails for Two” transports you and your date to one of those small tables in a smokey, late fifties nightclub .
I had never heard of Muriel Grossmann. Her “Breakthrough” lp is dated 2025 but the opening song, “Already Here,” had me convinced this was something I missed back in the modal jazz heyday of spiritual jazz – Alice Coltrane, Joe Henderson and Pharaoh Sanders etc.
Albums like Jackie McLean’s “One Step Beyond” with Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams are the reason students still study jazz at schools like Eastman. I particularly like the expressive, shape-shifting “Ghost Town” where they slowed things down.
Leroy Vinnegar’s “Leroy Walks Again” reminds you that a band is only as good as their bass player. Known as “The Walker,” he leads his quartet through a solid set of really enjoyable songs. I particularly liked “For Carl.”
Another bass player led disc, Emma Dayhuff’s “Innovation & Lineage: The Chicago Project,” is a live recording with Kahil El’Zabar on drums, Dee Alexander on vocals and Isaiah Collier on sax and piano. This is right up my alley, a contemporary version of spiritual jazz. I love this record.
Saxophonist Charlie Mariano’s “Mirror” lp could have only been made in 1972, that cusp when jazz went rock and rock went jazz. Tony Levin plays electric bass, Airto Moreira plays percussion and Asha Puthil (from Ornette’s “What Reason Could I Give” and “I’ve Waited All My Life”) sings on the title song. Here is a verse from the back of the lp.
MIRROR Mirror Of your mind Wheels and gears Spinning ’round and ’round Look out for diamonds You don’t need them What for? They can’t help you Find the rainbow’s end Open your third eye
Mona Seghatoleslami is the host of WXXI ‘s Classical 4-7 PM slot. She also hosts the lunchtime concert series at Hochstein. On top of that she books the bans at the Little Café. The WXXI site says “Mona works on any project she can find that helps connect people and music in our community. We asked Mona if she could recommend someone to tune our piano. The piano came from Peggi’s parents and we have only had it tuned once since we moved here. Jaffe, the Colorblind James/Fugs keyboardist took care of that one. Mona recommended Gene Baker, a composer new to the area. Now we are recommending him.
With new life in the upright Peggi has been refreshing her reading skills, concentrating on the left hand, low register parts as she reads. I’ve been listening to her slowly work through the Alec Wilder songbook with enough space between chords to make it sound like Morton Feldman’s “For Philip Guston.”
I picked up a copy of the Alice Coltrane book, “Monument Eternal,” at the show devoted to her at LA’s Hammer Museum. I read some of it while we out there and then some over the summer on our porch. It is a short book but I rarely plow straight through anything. Her son, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, says Alice was “one of the first people to move outside the mainstream, one of the first female, Black, American jazz musicians to record her own music in her own studio and release it on her own terms.” Alice was from Detroit so I’m loving all the references to clubs in the city. She spent time playing with fellow Motor City musicians Donald Byrd and then Terry Gibbs. Here is a passage from page 127.
“She was particularly at home in minor keys, especially improvising on tunes with slow harmonic motion – much of the music she recorded during her career as a bandleader, such as “Ptah the El Daoud” or “Journey in Satchidananda” were tunes of this nature. On Gibbs’ “Jewish Melodies in Jazztime,” we can see that her improvisations were already headed in this direction. We can also begin to understand why John Coltrane may have been attracted to her playing. Gibbs recounted how Alice actually “stole the date” from him: “She was starting to play runs she got from listening to John and all the musicians flipped out every time she played. She was making those Eastern-style runs on minor songs and they sounded very authentic. I was the Jew, and she was wiping me out.” (2003)
I’m guessing the owners of this sign are finally letting go of that missing Covid year. “Party Accordingly” is good advice any time. On Wednesday we’re celebrating the full moon at the Little Theatre Café. Melissa has gig in Syracuse with her primary band, Wren Cove, so we’ll play without her cello. Peggi and I fell into “It Ain’t Necessarily So” last night so we might try that one with the group. Jack will be there with his bass clarinet and guitar. That is always a treat.
Last month’s first set felt all off to Peggi and me but the second set was magic. Here is song number 11 of the 14 song we did that night.
“One” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on 10.08.25. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Jack Schaefer – guitar, Melissa Davies – cello, Paul Dodd – drums.
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While filing away some records I came across a sleeve with a stamp on it from a record store on Genesee Street. When Duane lived up here we used to haunt the reggae shops on the west side, his old neighborhood. Their primary business was selling weed under the counter but they advertised themselves as record shops and they had Jamaican imports and a sound system to back up the claim, big dirty, bottom heavy sound systems. They displayed their wares like the photo above except this one was taken in Duane’s office/media/spare bedroom in 1999 after he had moved to Brooklyn. It took me a bit to find the photo as it was tucked away in a folder called “DC210Photos, my first megapixel camera, a Kodak DC 210.
We were talking to Dick Storms at Brian Williams’ bash and I asked, how come you don’t have a Jazz 45 section over there. He was taken aback and acted surprised, saying, are you sure? He said he knew they had boxes of them in a closet in the back room. So many that he began fantasizing about filling the juke box in the back room with jazz 45s. I have spent quite a few hours in that closet now I have only come up with Duke Ellington’s “Indian Summer” and a wacky version of Gato Barbieri’s “Last Tango in Paris” by the Ventures. Rochester’s Gerry Niewood plays sax on that one. Not complaining. I realize how old world my quest has become.
Noah, Melissa,Andrew, Ben and Patrick at Wren Cove Record Release Party at Red White and Brew
We first heard Wren Cove when we shared a gig at Joy Gallery on West Main. They played first and we asked Melissa to sit in with us for our slot. That was three years ago and we’ve heard them many times since. If they don’t have a gig the same night as us Melissa has become a regular in our band.
For a duo Wren Cove provides an incredibly wide pallette of dreamy soundscapes. Andrew’s almost incessant strumming (I am partial to that quality in my own playing) is the foundation of the duo and Melissa’s cello is the “lead singer” as Andrew himself says.
Writing for City, Patrick Hoskin drops astute references to Arthur Russell and Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” in his review of the duo’s new cd, “Movement.” Wren Cove built many of the tracks on their new record around the ancient drum machines shown in the photo above. We have one of them, a Rythmn Ace. It still works even though we’ve jammed it a few times pushing two buttons at once for “Mambo/Slow Rock” or “Samba/Beguine.”. Wren Cove pushes stretches this idea further by manipulating the sound of the drum machine and then having real drummers play on top. This widens the picture frame and can sound like parts stumbling in different directions which only makes it a more compelling listen.
Songs like “Raga in Dm,”Wills,” “Everything We Carry” and especially “Nocturne” with Andrew’s gorgeous piano just sweep us away.
